3 minutes Push-Ups: this is SO IMPORTANT for everyone to watch a video on proper push-up form. I almost never see people go all the way chest-to-deck. I will do a full write up on this at some point.

2 minutes Kettlebell Swings: first time doing KB swings full-range since tweaking my back a month or so back!

1 minute Pull-Ups

Looks easy enough, right? WROOOOONG. Man, by the end of the first 5 minutes my shoulders were completely SHOT from the HSPUs. The air squats were a welcome “active rest” period, the push-ups were completely awful due to the HSPUs previously, the KB swings were great and I felt very strong using my hips as the driving force, and the pull-ups just about killed me. For the HSPUs, as I previously stated, I went to negatives and a hold. HSPUs: 25 + one 45 second handstand hold, air squats: 105, push-ups: 15 strict + 35 knees when form failed, for total of 50, kettlebell swings with 12kg/24lb: 48, pull-ups: a good ol’ whoppin’ 6, but they were unassisted.

So, how do you run a total for this? I guess adding everything without the hold, my total was 234. It was a quick, 15min workout that completely rocked my shoulders and quads. Pretty great! Tomorrow is Crossfit Carteret’s open house, and I’m hoping I’ll be participating in some of the demo-WODs that they’ll be doing throughout the early afternoon. I love working out with them so much! Sad to leave on Sunday!!

Strength:

12 min EMOTM Max Effort L-Sit on Rings: At the beginning of each minute, get up into an L-Sit or Ring Support with tucked knees, and hold as long as possible. Rest until the next minute begins, and repeat. I moved from L-Sit to Tucked Ring Support to Ring Support pretty quickly. Shoulders were completely gassed. Held at least 10 second every round, until the last two where I was up and down a few times to total about 15 seconds.

Then:

Partner WOD:

One partner runs 400m while the other partner completes as many medicine ball cleans as possible in that time. Once the 400m run is completed, partners switch. Continue for 30 minutes. Your score is the total amount of medicine ball cleans completed.

This was freaking BRUTAL. The L-Sits were painful at best, and running in the hot humid weather was awful. My partner was another female out-of-towner who was a beast, and really helped our score. She steadily averaged about 5-8 more medicine ball cleans per round than I did, which could have been because of how awful the running was for me. I learned today that I’m not very good at running on uneven terrain. That will make for a fun Tough Mudder this September! Not…eh. I ended up running a total of 2 miles (~3200m). Whew! I’m fairly happy with my performance. If I had scaled the weight on the cleans a little I would have felt better and accomplished more, but I’m glad I pushed through, in the end.

In other news: I’m doing some reading and unfortunately I think my “extremely sore weird area of my inner legs/calves” might end up being shin splints. I really hope that’s not the case, because I don’t want to rest/ice/do burpees instead of run or doubleunders while they heal. Ugh. When I get back into Northern Virginia I’m going to pop into the box I go to in Arlington and ask my favorite trainer what she suggests. I really hope it’s just sore muscles in a spot I’ve never worked before. Fingers crossed!

Strength:

Clean and Jerk, focusing on split jerk-work up to three heavy sets of three (you’ll see me write this as 3-3-3, eventually): 50-60-70lbs

Then:

Clean (just the first part of the C&J, seen above)
5 cleans EMOTM for 5 Min (EMOTM: “Every Minute On The Minute”): 65lbs
3 EMOTM for 5 Min: 70lbs
1 EMOTM for 5 Min: 75lbs; tried 80 but failed and backed down. Didn’t have it in me.

THEN:

WOD for Time: 18:57

Pretty stoked on this entire workout. This was the first time in a while that I clean&jerked, and one of the first times going heavy enough that I felt the need to really split jerk. Split jerking allows you to get under the weight faster, turning the lift more about the “pop” you get from your legs, and less about arm strength. The split jerk is completed when both legs are brought back to neutral, underneath you.

The cleans for the EMOTM part were more challenging than expected. I really gassed myself on the c&j’s, and I’m sad I wasn’t able to get 80lbs up. Next time! The third 75lb clean of the 5 minute set went up a little wonky. I kept the bar too close, smashed it up into my chest which killed my elbow momentum, and the bar landed smack on my sternum. I was able to pop it up into the normal position on my shoulders, but damn it hurt. I have a nice shiner from it today

Ouch.

The WOD was so great. I was able to push myself to only rest once in the middle of each set of burpees, and not at all in the 9-rep round. The pullups were…pullups. My grip started failing on the second 15-rep round, and I had to take it down to sets of 3-5 instead of 7-8 like I had done for the previous rounds. I could have probably done this with only one thin band, but it would have taken me much longer. I think I scaled appropriately in order to get a good speed going while still feeling challenged. Rocked out the last 21 burpees, feeling that “LAST SET! EVERYTHING YOU GOT! GO GO GO!!” rush, and felt awesome for getting sub-19 minutes. Another awesome experience with Crossfit Carteret!

Before I write anything else, I just wanted to say how much I absolutely love working out with the people of Crossfit Carteret. I have never felt more welcomed by a group of people. Ever since finding out about this box (other word for gym, since most Crossfit “gyms” are pretty much just four walls and a roof, warehouse style) I’ve had much more motivation to come down to the beach and stay for as long as possible.

It’s hard going on vacation, especially beach vacations. You eat differently, more frequently, and tend to do a lot of lying around. I could go on and on about how to make it work and come out ahead after being on vacation, but when it comes down to it, you are the only person who can make it happen; it’s as easy as doing the same things that you do while you’re at home. If you would like to hear some tips, let me know in the comments! Keep reading to hear about my first experience at Crossfit Carteret.

Crossfit Carteret

The owners, Todd, in the center in red, and Rhonda, to the left in white. Also shown: my gnarly tears from the heavy deadlift WOD that day.

This is honestly going to be one of the hardest posts that I will ever make. Forget confessing to cheat days, skipping WODs, taking a month off to be a lazyass; all of those pale in comparison to posting “before” pictures. I spent most of last night combing my laptop and the internet for pictures of myself in my previous states. The problem with this is I’ve never kept photos of myself where I look unhealthy or unfit. For the longest time I’ve twisted my torso, angled my head, scooped my tailbone, and used many other tactics to make myself look good in photos. I knew exactly how to position myself for the best possible result. Back at my peak I was definitely guilty of a little photoshop here and there as well.

I look back at old photos and think to myself “I didn’t look thaaaat bad back then!” but then I find a picture of me from a drinking night or a sleepy day, where I didn’t care enough to make myself look good, and it reminds me that there really is a reason why I’m making this change.

Really quickly, I want to emphasize that I’m trying to point out the difference in fitness from previous points of my life. I know that I was not obese. But I couldn’t scale a flight of stairs without getting winded, I couldn’t do a single pushup, I struggled pouring drinks in gallon containers because I couldn’t lift it with one arm. Being a little soft around the middle was all part of this, but my main concern was how completely out of shape I was. Please don’t comment saying that I “wasn’t fat” or that I “looked fine before,” because that’s not what this is about!

I am currently vacationing in the Outer Banks of North Carolina for 10 days. Thankfully, the last time I was down here I decided on a whim to search for a crossfit gym in this area, and came up with Crossfit Carteret in Beaufort, NC. I am planning on writing up a detailed review of their gym after this trip, but every experience I have had with them since has been amazing.

They are closed on Sundays and I couldn’t make it in yesterday morning, so I decided to create a little somethin’-somethin’ using bodyweight exercises that I could do in the driveway area of where I’m staying. Here is what I came up with:

5 Rounds for Time of:

30 Double Unders (exactly like jumping rope as a child, except the rope goes around twice for every one jump)

20 Air Squats (hips must go below the crease of the knees; no assistance from arms to stand up)

10 Jumping Lunges (5 on each leg, technically)

5 Strict Push-Ups (chest must make full contact with the ground before pushing back up)

1 150m Sprint (I use RunningMap to plan out the distances for all of my runs)

I didn’t think this would be all that bad. It was. The jumprope went rogue on the third round and I ended up whipping myself across the eye and cheekbone (didn’t even know that was possible), it was 89 degrees with no breeze and humid as all hell from the storm that passed through last night, and I was working out alone. These three factors all definitely impacted my results, but I finished in 19:50, and did all 25 of the push-ups in standard plank form instead of from my knees, which was actually my first time doing that in a WOD. I’m a pull-er, not a push-er, gimme a break. I am looking forward to trying this again in a month or so and seeing the difference!

Anyway, this was a pretty awesome workout. It just goes to show that even armed with nothing other than your cellphone and a jump rope you can still get a great workout in. Give it a go, try to beat my time, and let me know how you do!

Alright. Here’s my deal: I am a mid-20something female, on my own journey to jump headfirst from “wellness” into “fitness,” thus the tagline at the top of the page. (Crossfit beastmama Julie Foucher has a wonderful write-up on her blog about this exact continuum, if you’re interested.) I have been on this journey since around 2007, but have only recently found the perfect balance of diet and exercise-style that is enabling me to see constant results. And, as you can imagine, after close to 5 years of frustration it feels pretty damn awesome. No, I don’t think I’m fat, and I don’t think I have to lose weight. So please do not comment on my posts about how I am just fine the way I am, because that’s not what this is about.

In the past, I used to be obsessed with the number on the scale, no matter what it cost me. If I spent the day hungover, throwing up, and not eating from the previous night of binge drinking, but the scale was down a pound or two by the end of the night? That was a day well spent in my eyes. I’m absolutely embarrassed writing that, but it’s the truth.

Since then, I have learned that there is so much more to fitness than seeing lower numbers on the scale. I have learned when, what, and how to eat, reconditioned my body to feel hungry or full when I’m actually hungry or full (as opposed to just being bored, or eating everything on my plate), and have learned what kind of exercise agrees with my body to give me the healthy results that I’ve been striving for.

My goals for this blog are simple:

To inspire anyone, from close friends to complete strangers, to get up off their butts and start their own journey to a more fit and active life.

To gain a following that will hold me accountable, as I tend to slip a little between the months of October-December.

To inspire myself to push my comfort limits, and track my progress via photos and measurements broadcasted for all to see.

So welcome to my little corner of the fitness world! If you’re interested, scan over the pages in the links to the right and get to know who I am a little better. Please feel free to ask questions, leave comments, or suggest topics on any post that I make. I will only ask one thing of anyone who reads this: keep anything non-constructive to yourself. I do not tolerate rude, judgmental, and/or hateful people. I am a very happy person and I throughly enjoy keeping it that way!!